I've gotten enough questions that I don't want to keep sticky'ing posts at the top, so here's a quick F.A.Q. to help y'all out:
Please read below to make sure your question hasn't already been answered before commenting! Thanks!
Q: Is this mod compatible with Become a Bard? A: Yes. In general, this mod will not CONFLICT with my mod. A better explanation is given by GammaThreve:
Become A Bard allows you to add 9 xml files of your choice as a "custom songbook," but those xmls have to be put in the proper folder. You have to do some MCM configurations to get each song to play the proper length, but I have never been able to actually save those configurations (have to redo it all on each login). It would probably be easier to add the xmls from Become a Bard to this mod, but there is no way that mod author is ever going to sanction that.
Q: Is this mod compatible with Skyrim's Got Talent - Improve As a Bard? A: Yessum. In fact, JaySerpa purposefully integrated most (if not all) of the songs here into his mod! You will hear the bards in the taverns play these songs, and then you can also practice them yourself to improve your skills! A very humble thank you to Jay for using the songs of the talented artists I picked!
Q: Is this compatible with SKyrim AE? A: Sure thing! Bethesda didn't change these files, so it will work fine.
Q: Is this compatible with New Bard Songs? A: Yarr, matey! That mod replaces the signging songs, while this mod only replaces the instrumental songs. The two use different triggers.
Q: Why are the animations so glitchy and start/stop early/late? A: It is not this mod. It is present within the game engine itself. Even the default songs will play the animation short while music continues or keep playing the animation after the music has ended. When creating this, I kept the length of the music the same as the default files, so that they would be close. But I can only do so much, as I am not an animator, nor able to fuss with the games code to influence this further.
I will add more to this as other questions / comments arise.
July 10th, 2021: Main File (v1.3) - Combined all three ESPFE's into a single ESPFE "AIO" mod (All In One). - Now you have the option of having the AIO version, or three instruments individually (all ESPFE's, so no impact to your load order). - Updated the FOMOD.
Has anyone figured out the animations not playing issue yet? I'm trying to narrow down the cause. First, this mod seems to work fine with vanilla Skyrim on a new game. I just tested it, but not thoroughly. The animations do not (sometimes) play on my heavily modded version though. And it's not just this mod, New Bard Songs mod has the same issue.
I've done a bunch of testing and have not been able to narrow down the cause. I'm going to have to use the process of elimination to determine what mod(s) I'm running that conflict with this one. It's related to animobjects and idle animations though. And there are no conflicts in SSEedit thatI can find.
Fixed: I narrowed it down to the mod "Few Trees in Windhelm." (Yes, I know that makes no sense!) Now, I'm not saying this mod is the soul cause because it seems to work on a Vanilla game with BA Bards. A Few Trees in Windhelm has Navmesh edits (not sure why) which seem to cause the problem when combined with other mods and a smashed patch. This was difficult to narrow down and I doubt others will have the same issue due to different builds. But, if the instrument animations disappear and you're using that mod or its Whiterun variant you may want to try disabling it and see if your animations play correctly. So any mod that makes Navmesh changes inside (or possibly outside) of taverns "might" break the Bard Animations triggers. Looks like the Bard has to be standing on the trigger spot or the instrument animation glitches. If something pushes the Bard out of the spot the animation may stop.
I experienced the same animation issue as odeyssus. I also run a very heavily-modded game and had to determine the cause by process of elimination as well. Fortunately I had a primary suspect due to another issue and nailed the culprit right away! Cozy Taverns and Followers!
The mod Cozy Taverns breaks bard animations for playing their musical instruments in BA Bard Songs. Deactivating Friendlier Taverns.esp & Cozy Taverns Visual Overhaul.esp allowed the animations to play just fine.
Cozy Taverns also conflicts with: Cutting Room Floor. The .ESP file creates a major land tear near Nightgate Inn in Heljarchen. I have verified this. There are additional reports that Cozy Taverns creates clipping in Windhelm with JK's mods. Unverified by me.
Yes, and no. The problem is that the scripting is built into the core game, and not available to modify (AFAIK) for how the bards play their music. There are ways to tweak the percentages of how often singing songs are triggered compared to instrumental songs like these, but that's about it.
All the files that I added here follow to the original song lengths, meaning that if the original file was 13 sec long, I trimmed mine down between 12.5 - 13.5 sec. This was not only to keep away from "spooky actions", but also to tie directly to the animation lengths that the game mechanics have.
All this said - yes, you could put a full-length version of the songs that the bards play in place. However, the scripting does not (again, AFAIK) stop the playing of one song before starting another. It would take some testing (I'm not playing Skyrim ATM), but I would suspect that the two songs would overlap. This could be awesome... or very disconcerting.
As I wanted to keep this mod as universally applicable as possible (no scripting), I chose the more simplistic route and conformed to the game's mechanics.
This is amazing! Btw I have a question. If I want to add my own music to the list, would it be as simple as converting the mp3 file to xwm, rename it in accordance to how you named the files in the mod (ex: MUS_BardDrum_01_01), and put it in the mod folder?
Indeed, it is. The important part is the LENGTH of the music you use. I tried to keep close to what the original song lengths were, as to not mess with the animations.
Could a longer song work fine and continue to play the animations until it is done? Perhaps, but I never tested that.
dose this mod have an MCM menu normally? Cause I am having trouble with telling if its working in game and the MCM for Skyrim got Talent that I used with this mod don't appear ether. all the plugins are on but no new music and I have disabled Skyrim got Talent until I get this figured out.
Really nice and well needed mod, thank you, although I would personnally prefer having more medieval nordic melodies like in AC Valhalla than classical ones.
I'd be curious to know what the EULA permissions are for something like that. Not everyone is as open to using their property as companies like CD Projekt Red. If AC was open, I'd be happy to pull some of those in.
I've put some manually, especially from Wardruna and Einar Selvik skald songs ;) just 3 or 4 though maybe he has more. For the same reasons you mentioned I do not upload/share them. Might be worth it to ask him though.
Any easy way to find the mod causing the animation not to play?
I'm using All JK series, PCE, Dawn of Skyrim, with all patches (including AIO patches), and I noticed the Bard that didn't play the animation is Mikael in Bannered mare, he play the lute in a flash then it just gone and he singing like an opera now.
I want to disable this but Skyrim's Got Talent needs this mod so I can't... I think I'll have to bear with it or just remove it completely then. The mod is good but seeing the bard didn't play the animation is quite annoying. I think I'll have to let both go.
I've tried to check other inns (Silver-Blood Inn) and the bard playing the music animation, and it seems that this "might" only affect the bard in Whiterun, I've tried to disable JK's Bannered mare and its patches but the bug still persists. I really do hope to find the culprit, but those mods I've mentioned are all I could think of to be able to cause the problem (well maybe in addition I'm using LoSII and ELFX Shadows as well)
I think there must be another mod that makes edits to the NAVMESH in the area(s). Others have reported that this is a leading culprit/cause of other NPC behaviors going all wonky (see the stickied posts above). You should be able to review all your loaded mods in xEdit and see which once have a navmesh category.
Sometimes mod authors will accidentally alter navmeshs without realizing it when working in the Creation Kit, and it saves with their mod. Other times, the changes are intentional, but they mess up other NPC actions.
This is the best suggestion I can make for this. Good luck!
Hmm I still need to learn to use the xEdit but I just couldn't do it atm, life is quite busy hahha, but well thanks for your suggestion, I might just let this be for now and wait till I have the time to learn xEdit.
Thank you for your answer, I'm really appreciated it!
Do I need this mod https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10927 recommended by BA bard songs? I would like to use skyrims got talent. this mod listed above was out in 2017, never updated, and it is "Required: USKP or USLEEP (the authorused their bard song script as a base)", which i think is the old skyrim legendary edition unofficial patch ( i mod AE edition). the other alternative https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58555 is only for LE.
I don't think that this need the unofficial patch from Arthmoor. As the pages states, it used the script from that, but it is not linked to anything for USSEP, I believe. You should be fine.
@shiholude Hi, any chance we can have a patch for Additional Music (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80277) that also adds bard songs ?
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Please read below to make sure your question hasn't already been answered before commenting! Thanks!
Q: Is this mod compatible with Become a Bard?
A: Yes. In general, this mod will not CONFLICT with my mod. A better explanation is given by GammaThreve:
Q: Is this mod compatible with Skyrim's Got Talent - Improve As a Bard?
A: Yessum. In fact, JaySerpa purposefully integrated most (if not all) of the songs here into his mod! You will hear the bards in the taverns play these songs, and then you can also practice them yourself to improve your skills! A very humble thank you to Jay for using the songs of the talented artists I picked!
Q: Is this available for Skyrim LE?
A: Yup! You can go to the LE hosted linked page of Emisaruliubirii here: BA_BardSongs-47202-1-2 (BACKPORT) to download it.
Q: Is this compatible with SKyrim AE?
A: Sure thing! Bethesda didn't change these files, so it will work fine.
Q: Is this compatible with New Bard Songs?
A: Yarr, matey! That mod replaces the signging songs, while this mod only replaces the instrumental songs. The two use different triggers.
Q: Why are the animations so glitchy and start/stop early/late?
A: It is not this mod. It is present within the game engine itself. Even the default songs will play the animation short while music continues or keep playing the animation after the music has ended. When creating this, I kept the length of the music the same as the default files, so that they would be close. But I can only do so much, as I am not an animator, nor able to fuss with the games code to influence this further.
I will add more to this as other questions / comments arise.
- Combined all three ESPFE's into a single ESPFE "AIO" mod (All In One).
- Now you have the option of having the AIO version, or three instruments individually (all ESPFE's, so no impact to your load order).
- Updated the FOMOD.
I've done a bunch of testing and have not been able to narrow down the cause. I'm going to have to use the process of elimination to determine what mod(s) I'm running that conflict with this one. It's related to animobjects and idle animations though. And there are no conflicts in SSEedit thatI can find.
Fixed: I narrowed it down to the mod "Few Trees in Windhelm." (Yes, I know that makes no sense!) Now, I'm not saying this mod is the soul cause because it seems to work on a Vanilla game with BA Bards. A Few Trees in Windhelm has Navmesh edits (not sure why) which seem to cause the problem when combined with other mods and a smashed patch. This was difficult to narrow down and I doubt others will have the same issue due to different builds. But, if the instrument animations disappear and you're using that mod or its Whiterun variant you may want to try disabling it and see if your animations play correctly. So any mod that makes Navmesh changes inside (or possibly outside) of taverns "might" break the Bard Animations triggers. Looks like the Bard has to be standing on the trigger spot or the instrument animation glitches. If something pushes the Bard out of the spot the animation may stop.
I also run a very heavily-modded game and had to determine the cause by process of elimination as well. Fortunately I had a primary suspect due to another issue and nailed the culprit right away! Cozy Taverns and Followers!
The mod Cozy Taverns breaks bard animations for playing their musical instruments in BA Bard Songs. Deactivating Friendlier Taverns.esp & Cozy Taverns Visual Overhaul.esp allowed the animations to play just fine.
Cozy Taverns also conflicts with:
Cutting Room Floor. The .ESP file creates a major land tear near Nightgate Inn in Heljarchen. I have verified this.
There are additional reports that Cozy Taverns creates clipping in Windhelm with JK's mods. Unverified by me.
EDIT: Uh, Nevermind, after installing it two more times I now just works. Think NMM was having a senior moment.
First of all thank you so much for the great songs you added. Very well done and creative..especially the lute music.
My request is for a option to loop so we can make the songs longer. Perhaps something can be added to the scripts.
Thanks!
All the files that I added here follow to the original song lengths, meaning that if the original file was 13 sec long, I trimmed mine down between 12.5 - 13.5 sec. This was not only to keep away from "spooky actions", but also to tie directly to the animation lengths that the game mechanics have.
All this said - yes, you could put a full-length version of the songs that the bards play in place. However, the scripting does not (again, AFAIK) stop the playing of one song before starting another. It would take some testing (I'm not playing Skyrim ATM), but I would suspect that the two songs would overlap. This could be awesome... or very disconcerting.
As I wanted to keep this mod as universally applicable as possible (no scripting), I chose the more simplistic route and conformed to the game's mechanics.
Could a longer song work fine and continue to play the animations until it is done? Perhaps, but I never tested that.
Cause I am having trouble with telling if its working in game and the MCM for Skyrim got Talent that I used with this mod don't appear ether.
all the plugins are on but no new music and I have disabled Skyrim got Talent until I get this figured out.
Any Idea what's wrong?
While I fully support everyone using SGT alongside this...
I do not provide support for any technical issues while using both mods together.
Please reach out to JaySerpa for assistance with his mod, and make sure that you installed everything properly.
This is working flawlessly on it own.
I'm using All JK series, PCE, Dawn of Skyrim, with all patches (including AIO patches), and I noticed the Bard that didn't play the animation is Mikael in Bannered mare, he play the lute in a flash then it just gone and he singing like an opera now.
There is nothing that this mod or BGT does that will cause this action.
Sometimes mod authors will accidentally alter navmeshs without realizing it when working in the Creation Kit, and it saves with their mod. Other times, the changes are intentional, but they mess up other NPC actions.
This is the best suggestion I can make for this. Good luck!
Thank you for your answer, I'm really appreciated it!